A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything
Welcome to the wiki page for the presentation. I would love your feedback. Just click the discussion tab above to let me know what you thought, to share ideas, or to start conversations.
"It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change" – Charles Darwin
"The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -- Alvin Toffler
"Sometimes traveling to a new place leads to great transformation" --Fortune Cookie from PF Chang's, Austin, TX
“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists” — Eric Hoffer
"The kind of questioning, collaborative, active, lateral rather than hierarchical pedagogy that participatory media both forces and enables is not the kind of change that takes place quickly or at all in public schools." -- Howard Rheingold
My Goals:
To start conversations
To ask questions
To challenge your thinking about teaching and learning
The Big Premise:
This is a very challenging moment for educators. Our children are headed for a much more networked existence, one that allows for learning to occur 24, 7, 365, one that renders physical space much less important for learning, one that will challenge the relevance of classrooms as currently envisioned, and one that challenges our roles as teachers and adult learners.
The World is Changing
“This is a period of prolonged and profound transition in the ways we relate to communication and information.” Henry Jenkins
In just a decade’s time, we’ll have gone from half the world never having made a telephone call to half the world owning a phone. (Mark Pesce)
UNESCO says there will be more "educated people" in the next 30 years than in the sum of human history to date. (Cited in the TED Talks video with Sir Ken Robinson.)
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that most American workers will change jobs between 10 and 14 times by age 38.
"Hypertransparent and hyperconnected world." Dov Seidman, How
The Change: The Read/Write Web
It's as easy to create and publish content as it is to consume it.
Take a look at how Cisco sees the new "Human Network" where "you subscribe to people, not magazines."
"This generation will transform the workplace and the way business is conducted to an extent not witnessed since the "organization man" of the 1950s." Don Tapscott, Wikinomics, pg. 54
IBM has 26,000 blogs, 20,000 wikis, it's own social bookmarking program, and 400,000 full and part-time employees participating in a My Space like social networking system. (Wall Street Journal, 6.18.07, quoted here.)
Accenture, which spent $700 million on education last year, says its 38,000 consultants and most of its service workers take course on collaborating with offshore colleagues. (Business Week)
Challenging Times for Educators:
Our students are leading us.
Participating more
Collaborating more
Creating more
71% of students with online access use social networking tools on a weekly basis (NSBA)
75% of college students have a Facebook site
The use of social software by educators is significantly less.
We can also build networks in virtual worlds. In fact, over 70 colleges already have. (Berkman Center in Second Life)
The Web is Challenging our Assumptions About Knowledge, Information and Literacy
It's not as much about content anymore as much as it is about context. Knowledge and information used to be scarce...that's what our education system was built upon.
But how much of that information do we really remember and use? "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" How many sides to a trapezoid?
But today, I can learn anything, anytime, anywhere providing I have access.
Knowledge is no longer scarce. (MIT) (1.4 million visitors per month from every country, 2,000 courses, 440,000 course downloads per month.) And now there is a section of content just for high schools.
And we tend to look at knowledge as hard or unchanging...but these days, knowledge is soft. It's constantly changing. (Wikipedia) To date, almost 6.5 million articles have been created in some 250 languages by almost 6 million people.
Take this teacher's Tweet: "In Gr.8 - using Google Earth, Flickr, YouTube, bbcnews, to learn about the protests in Burma .. world at their fingertips, AS IT HAPPENS!"
Now we have the opportunity to be connectors, to bring our classrooms to the world in a variety of ways. We can find other teachers who may know more than we do. (Secret Life of Bees)
Here's another example of students learning from mentors. (Polar Science)
We can also connect our students to other students around the world so they can learn together. (Flat Classrooms Wiki)
And in a world where all of our students can be content producers as well as content consumers, we need to re-envision the work we ask them to do.
Why is this important? Because the world is changing, and we are changing it, and our students need to know how to change the world with these technologies. (Water Buffalo Movie)
How do we learn to help our students leverage the technologies they are already using instead of have them check them at the door? (Especially when our students can get around our efforts anyway.)
How do we change? How do we re-envision teaching for a vastly changed world?
How do we the use of these technologies in our own practice?
A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything
Welcome to the wiki page for the presentation. I would love your feedback. Just click the discussion tab above to let me know what you thought, to share ideas, or to start conversations.Will Richardson
Weblogg-ed.com
weblogged@gmail.com
Some Quotes to Think About:
"It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change" – Charles Darwin
"The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -- Alvin Toffler
"Sometimes traveling to a new place leads to great transformation" --Fortune Cookie from PF Chang's, Austin, TX
“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists” — Eric Hoffer
"The kind of questioning, collaborative, active, lateral rather than hierarchical pedagogy that participatory media both forces and enables is not the kind of change that takes place quickly or at all in public schools." -- Howard Rheingold
My Goals:
- To start conversations
- To ask questions
- To challenge your thinking about teaching and learning
My Lenses:The Big Premise:
This is a very challenging moment for educators. Our children are headed for a much more networked existence, one that allows for learning to occur 24, 7, 365, one that renders physical space much less important for learning, one that will challenge the relevance of classrooms as currently envisioned, and one that challenges our roles as teachers and adult learners.
The World is Changing
The Change: The Read/Write Web
The Web is Changing Politics
The Web is Changing Government
The Web is Changing Journalism/Media
- Markets are conversations AND relationships, not transactions or products. Advertising is not a relationship. (Cluetrain Manifesto
- Look at the conversations about Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.
- Take a look at how Cisco sees the new "Human Network" where "you subscribe to people, not magazines."
- "This generation will transform the workplace and the way business is conducted to an extent not witnessed since the "organization man" of the 1950s." Don Tapscott, Wikinomics, pg. 54
- IBM has 26,000 blogs, 20,000 wikis, it's own social bookmarking program, and 400,000 full and part-time employees participating in a My Space like social networking system. (Wall Street Journal, 6.18.07, quoted here.)
- Accenture, which spent $700 million on education last year, says its 38,000 consultants and most of its service workers take course on collaborating with offshore colleagues. (Business Week)
Challenging Times for Educators:The Web is Challenging our Assumptions About Knowledge, Information and Literacy
The Web is Challenging our Assumptions about Classrooms and Teaching
We Need a 2020 Vision for Education (Bud Hunt)